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what about an online marketplace where you can place bets on the death day of anybody which only pays out for everyone who "guesses correctly"
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Sep 14, 2016 00:21
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Discendo Vox posted:nm, a study covering one of the points you're looking for was linked further up the page. Yes, these externalities exist, yes they are a problem. The entirety of the benefits and advantages these companies are using to their benefit exist through evading extant regulations. Those regulations exist for a reason. These "disruptors" are trying to take advantage of the naive and solipsistic preference for immediate convenience that can give them a lasting market share and support base among the entitled and self-centered. They are counting on people not noticing or caring about the harms that the evasion of these regulations causes, especially when the harms are delayed or transposed to others. The study shows that there are a lot of airbnbs in expensive areas. That doesn't show causation or how much. If it raises rents by 10 bux a month, its a smaller issue than 100 bux. Also, people have been renting out houses short term for years, which was the comment that started my commentary, I don't really see how airbnb is any different, just better marketing. It isn't even really "disruptive" or whatever they call it. Also, if I tear down an apartment building with 50 apartments and build a 50 room hotel, is that different for a neighborhood than renting out 50 apartments in the area on airbnb? Assuming one pays all the local taxes, which airbnb appears to have gotten better about charging. Airbnb really just doesn't seem that bad in the grand scheme of things compared to uber, which has a long history of abusing contracted workers, or like theranos or something. It even seems to be attempting to fix some of the bad things (not collecting taxes, racist descrimination). ADA may be a big pitfall for them. Edit: or that loving poo poo posted above.
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Sep 14, 2016 00:32
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Discendo Vox posted:What would an ethical, legal Uber look like? It would look like a taxi company. Yeah I'm sure that a bunch of rent-seeking medallion owners is exactly what we'd arrive at if we started trying to reason out an ethical system from first principles.
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Sep 14, 2016 00:33
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nm posted:Also, if I tear down an apartment building with 50 apartments and build a 50 room hotel, is that different for a neighborhood than renting out 50 apartments in the area on airbnb? Assuming one pays all the local taxes, which airbnb appears to have gotten better about charging. there are very few places where you would be able to do this, as one common feature of american zoning codes is separating most low intensity residential uses from high traffic commercial uses such as a hotel airbnb allows people to easy get around this restriction, which may not be a problem as in the case of your quiet neighbor - or it may be a significant problem, say if an LLC purchases a large house in a nice neighborhood and subdivides it into five distinct units, with 5x the typical traffic of a house that size
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Sep 14, 2016 00:37
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^^^^^^^ Many, but certainly not all, of the neighborhoods with gentrification problems are urban neighborhoods with mixed use zoning. In many cases, there may even be hotels next door. Also, if a city legalizes short term rentals in residential neighborhoods (as my city has done if you follow certain rules), does that change the thought process? blah_blah posted:Yeah I'm sure that a bunch of rent-seeking medallion owners is exactly what we'd arrive at if we started trying to reason out an ethical system from first principles. I missed that. Also, taxis are often racist as gently caress. loving Michael Moore did a great piece in the 90s where Yaphet Kotto tries to hail a cab near a white felon. It should shock no one what happened. nm fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 00:38
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Popular Thug Drink posted:also we don't really want wildcat hospitality popping up. these are called flophouses, and they are generally not good, for a variety of reasons that apparently society has forgotten about because every 80 years we have to make the same mistakes because we literally did that thing about forgetting history and then repeating ourselves re: sanitation regulations Flophouses actually had a social benefit, in that they were an affordable short term housing solution for the poor, who often have unstable housing situations. Even if they were dirty and unsafe, they were better than staying on the street or with abusive people. AirBnb has many of the downsides of flophouses, but none of the benefit, as they actively avoid marketing to low income people.
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Sep 14, 2016 00:38
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nm posted:I missed that. Also, taxis are often racist as gently caress. loving Michael Moore did a great piece in the 90s where Yaphet Kotto tries to hail a cab near a white felon. It should shock no one what happened. uber has similar problems with adequately provisioning cars in 'bad' neighborhoods, except they can maintain plausible deniability through the contractor system
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Sep 14, 2016 00:40
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Popular Thug Drink posted:uber has similar problems with adequately provisioning cars in 'bad' neighborhoods, except they can maintain plausible deniability through the contractor system Most cab companies also employ people as independent contractors (though generally with cab companies they actually are). I'm not going to claim uber and lyft (who always seems to get a pass) are good actors, but we shouldn't pretend that what was there before was all sunshine and unicorn farts.
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Sep 14, 2016 00:44
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nm posted:Most cab companies also employ people as independent contractors (though generally with cab companies they actually are). I'm not going to claim uber and lyft (who always seems to get a pass) are good actors, but we shouldn't pretend that what was there before was all sunshine and unicorn farts. no, of course not, but at least they generally tried to comply with local regulations
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Sep 14, 2016 00:46
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nm posted:Airbnb really just doesn't seem that bad in the grand scheme of things compared to uber, which has a long history of abusing contracted workers, or like theranos or something. It even seems to be attempting to fix some of the bad things (not collecting taxes, racist descrimination). ADA may be a big pitfall for them. reminder that the idiom "getting taken for a ride" to mean a deception or scam arose in reference to jitney cabs and how common it was for them to gently caress people over in various ways
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Sep 14, 2016 00:48
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The problems you describe are problems that are regulated. The difference is that the "disruptors" profit by completely evading those regulations. That is their entire business model. The reason they exist is to be a convenient way to poo poo on people that their clients don't want to think about. Uber is trying to bring piece work back. AirBnB is reinvigorating flophouses. This isn't a situation that can be tu quoque'd out of. They're not equivalent.
Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 00:52
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Discendo Vox posted:AirBnB is reinvigorating flophouses. No, seriously, citation needed. Or some basis. This argument doesn't follow for me at all. Also, airbnb is actively trying to be regulated in most places.
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Sep 14, 2016 00:54
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nm posted:No, seriously, citation needed. Or some basis. This argument doesn't follow for me at all. in my opinion "complies with legal regulation" is usually best hammered out before a business is launched, not after, but i guess that's why im not a successful entrepeneur
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Sep 14, 2016 00:59
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nm posted:No, seriously, citation needed. Or some basis. This argument doesn't follow for me at all. Edit: I think his point is that the business model of AirBnb is to offer rates that are cheaper than hotels because hotels have to pay for a lot of things airbnb hosts don't, like safety regulations and inspections. Its the equivalent of getting hamburgers for cheap by buying directly from the rancher and avoiding all those pesky and costly FDA inspections. Disruption! Popular Thug Drink posted:in my opinion "complies with legal regulation" is usually best hammered out before a business is launched, not after, but i guess that's why im not a successful entrepeneur cheese fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 01:10
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nm posted:No, seriously, citation needed. Or some basis. This argument doesn't follow for me at all. By "active;y trying to be regulated", are you referring to them spending millions to oppose any regulations whatsoever?
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Sep 14, 2016 01:21
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BTW, there actually is a "medical" marijuana startup, http://www.getsava.com . I would love to know who's processing their credit-card payments. (If you're in the Bay Area and actually need medical marijuana, I highly, highly recommend Moxie high-CBD tinctures, which Sava carries.)
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Sep 14, 2016 01:23
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Slanderer posted:By "active;y trying to be regulated", are you referring to them spending millions to oppose any regulations whatsoever?
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Sep 14, 2016 01:24
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Cultivating a community of users who pride themselves on the convenience of an innovative new product. Powerful leader gurus with insights that others lack. Disruption. We play by our own rules. Maximizing returns through the construction of novel products and businesses through selective and innovative ignorance and evasion of the law. Disruption. Americans striking out and fining a piece of the real American dream. No externalities- I mean, I just don't see the consequences. Where's the causal proof? Disruption! Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 01:26
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cheese posted:They want some minor regulations as a stamp of legitimacy, not anything that will challenge their business model. It's more likely that they want favorable regulations. "Well see you can't regulate us like a hotel because we aren't. We're clearly *other thing* which is a much sweeter deal. And also costs less because nobody ever inspects it."
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Sep 14, 2016 01:27
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ToxicSlurpee posted:It's more likely that they want favorable regulations.
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Sep 14, 2016 01:33
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blah_blah posted:Yeah I'm sure that a bunch of rent-seeking medallion owners is exactly what we'd arrive at if we started trying to reason out an ethical system from first principles. Except medallion cabs are street hails, the very thing Uber isn't?
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Sep 14, 2016 01:42
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Taxi companies have apps now, and you've been able to call them for service for decades.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:17
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BarbarianElephant posted:but in actual fact they are just pissed that they don't have a monopoly any more. BarbarianElephant, you keep using this word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:25
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duz posted:Except medallion cabs are street hails, the very thing Uber isn't? The point is that taxi companies aren't really that much better for the drivers than Uber is. Ignatius J. Reilly, I mean, Discendo Vox just made a claim earlier in the thread that the way taxi cab companies are structured is ethical, which is just lol
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Sep 14, 2016 02:25
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Really, another thing just occurred to me; people have been occasionally saying "but renting your house out for weekends has happened forever!" But the thing of it is so has, say, taking your friend to the airport for $5. This isn't illegal on a small scale for a reason; it'd be absurd if it was illegal to let a friend crash on your couch on the cheap for a few months if he needed it. Carpooling has been around forever and that's often "we split the costs of the commute and all ride together." No big deal; however Uber and AirBNB changed the scale. In theory this stuff started to make things on that scale easier. "Well hey I'm driving to New York next week. Wonder if I could find somebody else that needs to go there too that could help pay for it." "Hey I have this second house in the middle of nowhere that extended family pays me to stay in on vacation from time to time. No huge deal." Notice another thing, though; with the internet, with cell phones, it's far easier to get in touch with strangers who want those things. In the past you couldn't just bring up Uber and find somebody who needed a ride. You had to ask around. Chances are it was a smaller scale because it was poo poo you had anyway and you were splitting the costs with people you probably knew, if only tangentially. Your uncle's hunting buddy probably wasn't going to do too much damage to that cabin in the woods you own and hey how many hunting buddies does your uncle have, anyway? Uber and AirBNB industrialized these transactions on a grand scale. They're trying to play it up like they're just somebody renting out a spare room to people they know sometimes while knowing full well that this isn't small-scale "I help out people I know" poo poo. They're using the fact that those things are totally fine to create a business out of doing it on a grand scale. Me letting 3 or 4 people stay in my spare room for a weekend or so is dramatically different from renting a place, not even living in it, and treating 120 people staying there a year as exactly the same thing. It loving isn't. It's like the difference between a toddler on a tricycle hitting you in the shin and getting flattened by a bus. It isn't even in the same league.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:38
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Vacation rental properties have been a thing for years. Generally they were done through real estate agents and similar with no real networks until airbnb and vrbo. Generally this was more of a tourist area thing (coast houses), but my parents rented their fair share of urban apartments for a few nights even before the whole internet thing came along. I agree the scale is different, but not in the sense you describe. This isn't people charging to sleep on a couch. It is just more people, both renters and land owners see it as a viable option.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:09
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nm posted:I agree the scale is different, but not in the sense you describe. This isn't people charging to sleep on a couch. It is just more people, both renters and land owners see it as a viable option.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:12
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Discendo Vox posted:Taxi companies have apps now, and you've been able to call them for service for decades.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:15
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Halloween Jack posted:Yes, but then the driver says he can't take a credit card, or his credit card reader is broken, or crosses multiple zones as defined by his company to hike the fare, or wants to initiate a haggling process as soon as my rear end is in the seat. As a suburbanite who grew up in a rural area without cabs, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about that I do not want to loving deal with. These are things that are or can be regulated. Also, what's the extent of your actual exposure to cab companies, as a suburbanite who grew up in a rural area without cabs?
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Sep 14, 2016 03:19
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Arsenic Lupin posted:And, as we say over and over in this thread, renters and owners aren't the only stakeholders. I'm aware of that. In fact we had a long discussion about externalities right up there. However, renters and owners are the only people making these services popular, therefore increasing the scale. His arguement is that airbnb is changing the scale because instead of a people letting a friend sleep on their couch, they're renting complete apartments. My arguement is that airbnb has increased the scale because while people have rented out entire residences for years, however airbnb's marketing and visiblity have made it seem like an option to more people, therefore increasing the market. It's interesting that you read the statement you quoted and somehow thought I was saying that it didn't impact other people. I guess you just saw guy who doesn't completely hate airbnb and went after it. Discendo Vox posted:These are things that are or can be regulated. Also, what's the extent of your actual exposure to cab companies, as a suburbanite who grew up in a rural area without cabs? Race selective pickups and suburban service are two things I think uber and lyft do genuinely better. While race can be a factor in where people get picked up, a black person and a white person at the same location are equally likely to get picked up. Something you can't say for cabs -- I've even heard of bullshit with radio cabs. Suburban cab service was a joke when I lived in the IE. I think my city had maybe 4 operable taxi cabs, most of which weren't running at the same time and so on. Uber and lyft do a much better job covering the area. This doesn't justify flouting of labor laws, but they are two areas that show that taxis certainly aren't a perfect system. nm fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 03:30
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AirBNB increased the scale dramatically; perhaps even exponentially. People renting out dozens of apartments to rent them out to others on holidays is actually pretty new because people who do that historically went for hotels because they, you know, knew what the regulations were. AirBNB took that little loophole and turned it into a crater.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:33
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nm posted:Vacation rental properties have been a thing for years. Generally they were done through real estate agents and similar with no real networks until airbnb and vrbo. rental agencies comply with local regulations on the whole. since airbnb operates in thousands of jurisdictions and not just a handful they can't possibly comply with all local regulations the fact that sunset cove timeshare management ltd. can manage to operate fully legally and airbnb can't is kind of telling
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Sep 14, 2016 03:34
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Discendo Vox posted:These are things that are or can be regulated. Also, what's the extent of your actual exposure to cab companies, as a suburbanite who grew up in a rural area without cabs?
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Sep 14, 2016 03:38
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Popular Thug Drink posted:rental agencies comply with local regulations on the whole. since airbnb operates in thousands of jurisdictions and not just a handful they can't possibly comply with all local regulations I'm not sure they all do follow the law. Generally many of them run afoul of the same laws as airbnb (no rentals shorter than 30 days an the like). I don't think most people actually care about the laws anyhow. If there were 50 illegal airbnbs v. legal apartment rentals, you'd have the same complaints about property values and itinerant customers. The issue for most people is the volume, not the legality, the legality is just a useful tool. Before everyone gets all upset about that, the point is not "well then the law doesn't matter, go break the law," the point is people are pissed that someone is renting an apartment on a daily basis next door to them or they want to rent the apartment on a long term basis, etc.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:41
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nm posted:I'm not sure they all do follow the law. Generally many of them run afoul of the same laws as airbnb (no rentals shorter than 30 days an the like). it's impossible to generalize across the united states but a registered place of business which specifically manages other people's private property and uses them for short term rentals (i'm assuming we're talking about a touristy area where this is tolerated) is far more likely to pay local/state hotel taxes, because they're probably going to hire someone to make sure exactly that happens. your average airbnb'er is probably not going to do that, especially if they're renting personal property frequently and dont think of their behavior as business or know/care they're supposed to pay those taxes. it's possible for localities to point towards a discrepancy in past revenues if airbnb starts making a major impact. this is just one example off the top of my head i really doubt a company like this can find much business in a place where short term renting is banned anyway. i vacation in a small town where most of the rentals are people's condos and beach houses and stuff that are rented out while the owner isn't there (most of the year) by management companies. even if you stay in someone's random townhouse there are clearly marked fire exits and extinguishers, sprinklers, etc. and other just minimal health and safety stuff. it's a requirement that your private residence has to be up to a commercial level of fire safety before you can rent it out boner confessor fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 03:47
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nm posted:I don't think most people actually care about the laws anyhow. I think we've identified the locus of your problem. Halloween Jack posted:Using them while on vacation, taking one from a friend's house to the airport, and most critically, calling for service for guest speakers at work. Having a driver suddenly bullshit you about payment when you have a plane to catch or a guest lecturer to take care of is somewhat harrowing. So, extremely limited, with complaints based on your experiences with a single company. Gotcha. Great.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:53
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Airbnb does collect hotel tax in a lot of jurisdictions, though.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:55
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I got bad service from multiple cab companies and I would prefer good service from any cab companies that provide it. I like Uber's app-based model with up-front pricing. I've also gotten the same service from good cab companies and am willing to pay more for it as long as I get the good service. I'm not sure why this is a problem for you.
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Sep 14, 2016 03:57
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Halloween Jack posted:I got bad service from multiple cab companies and I would prefer good service from any cab companies that provide it. I like Uber's app-based model with up-front pricing. I've also gotten the same service from good cab companies and am willing to pay more for it as long as I get the good service. I'm not sure why this is a problem for you. Uber's app-based model functions by screwing over all cab companies, and all drivers, and all municipalities. That is how they make what money they get. That is their business model. Cab companies increasingly also have apps. But Uber is not equivalent to a cab company, because cab companies are at least subject to the law. Gail Wynand posted:Airbnb does collect hotel tax in a lot of jurisdictions, though. Yeah, and it's a large part of why they're going to fail in the long term. Airbnb's profit was based in evading regulation- municipalities and states that get them to pay taxes, and force them to obey the laws that actually apply to companies that do what they do, can't be profitable for them. The company can only exist as long as the side costs of doing business, the costs that are normally shouldered by companies that operate within the law, are covered by other people. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Sep 14, 2016 |
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Sep 14, 2016 04:06
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Halloween Jack posted:I got bad service from multiple cab companies and I would prefer good service from any cab companies that provide it. I like Uber's app-based model with up-front pricing. I've also gotten the same service from good cab companies and am willing to pay more for it as long as I get the good service. I'm not sure why this is a problem for you. Chicago at least requires most cabs to take credit cards. If the reader is "broken," they have to have the old fashioned carbon paper up front to take payment. Of course, you have to weigh that against whether you want to push your luck with a moody cabbie. I've had the problem much less in the last few years though, credit cards are just a fact of life they need to deal with. I'm sure similar rules apply in a lot of big cities, but obviously every municipality is going to have their own rules/lack of them. But I would hope big cities and anywhere that sees a lot of tourists are similar.
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Sep 14, 2016 04:18
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